Ottawa employment lawyer on home-care nurse discrimination case

A home-care nurse in Hamilton has alleged that her employer failed to protect her from being sexually assaulted by a patient and has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The traumatic event has affected the nurse significantly in and out of the workplace, and she claims her employer’s failure to act amounts to discrimination as the staff at the workplace is largely female.

What are employer’s obligations to their employee’s safety in home-care or long-term home settings?

An Ottawa employment lawyer at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke with CBC and states there has been a shift in conversations concerning non-traditional workplaces.

“The law is quite clear what the obligations of employers are and what the rights of employees are when it comes to workplace health and safety. What we’re seeing now which is … a developing area of the law is the actual workplaces that are changing,” the lawyer explains, “even more so in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The employment lawyer goes on to comment that while the employment laws do not change, their application has changed. “It’s not always possible to have the exact same health and safety measures in place in a remote work setting as in a traditional workplace. Employers must make an effort to ensure that the workplace is as safe and as healthy as possible” and consider alternatives that provide similar protections,” the lawyer explains.

“In a home care context, workers may not have access to the same supports they would in a hospital, but there are many other measures that can be enacted, such as a buddy system, for example,” the employment lawyer states.